Unfortunately, race and class are extremely reliable indicatorsas to where one might find the good stuff, like parks and trees,and where one might find the bad stuff, like power plants and waste facilities.

In this passionate TED talk, Majora Carter highlights why social justice needs to be a foundation of environmental sustainability, community engagement and strengths-based approaches, and also highlights the importance of bottom-up approaches.

She doesn’t actually talk about strengths-based approaches, but her work would certainly resonate with many people who adopt asset-based community-driven development and other strengths-based approaches to working with communities.

It’s worth reading more about Bogota (the capital of Colombia) and some of the changes it has made that she mentions towards the end of her talk.

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Welcome to Sustaining Community

Families, community engagement and environmental sustainability – for parents, students, practitioners and anyone who wants to make a difference. By Graeme Stuart from the Family Action Centre at the University of Newcastle. The views are my own.